Personal habits and morbidities of women residents of slums in Mysuru City, India

Background: Women forms the vulnerable group in every community and specially more in economically weaker section of urban India represented by slums of urban India. The urban poor (slum dwellers) are at the interface between underdevelopment and industrialization as well as interface between rural and urban areas. Their disease pattern and personal habits also reflects the problems of both. Objectives: To study personal habits and morbidities of Women residents of Slums in Mysore City. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study carried out on 653 women of slum dwellers of Mysore, between January 2014 and December 2015. Information was obtained by interviewing the study participants. Results: Around 48% had any morbidities with 95% CI of 44-51.8, 5.7% have menstrual morbidities, and with 9.5% & 7% of smoking and alcohol use respectively. Conclusions: Women centric focused health education among economically weaker section of communities should be encouraged. Women centric public health infrastructure should be made available for urban poor with focus on slum dwellers. The focus should be for communicable as well as non-communicable diseases as the group is vulnerable for both.